Catalyst
by Aeroway
Summary: "We're leaving for London in a week. This is pretty much the last chance we're going to have to do this." Kendall, James, and Carlos have a plan, but can they manage to pull it off? One-shot.


**A/N: I decided to write this instead of studying for a chem test, but no regrets there. I haven't worked with humor before, so review and tell me how it turned out? Special thanks to HeavenRose for looking over and editing this.**

**Big Time Rush belongs to Nickelodeon et al., not me.**

* * *

"Ready?"  
"Ready."

Kendall, James, and Carlos were huddled together, hidden behind the hallway corner of Apartment 2J. Carlos not-so-stealthily peeked into the living room to assess their situation, but his helmet fell over his eyes, hindering any attempts at reconnaissance. When he pushed it back up, he saw Logan looking at him curiously from the kitchen counter.

"Carlos, what are you doing?"

Carlos let out a yelp, then disappeared back into the shadow of the hallway.

"Nice going, Mr. Bond," James laughed quietly as Carlos rejoined the huddle. "You'd be an awful spy."

"Hey, I was a great spy that time we had to rescue the princess from the evil bald guy in the castle. She was about to ask me—"

"Carlos, that was a dream," Kendall reminded him, smirking in amusement. "Anyways, we're leaving for London in a week, and Logan's busy freaking out about those tests in his accelerated classes. This is pretty much the last chance we're going to have to do this."

James reached into his pocket and pulled out a royal blue bandana, quickly tying it around his head. He then proceeded to dig out a small video camera, the only one in the apartment that somehow hadn't been destroyed; it had belonged to Logan before James "borrowed" it. He announced dramatically, "Behold! The Super Secret Camera of Secrets is ready for action!"

Kendall turned towards James and raised his eyebrows. "You said 'secret' twice."

"You bet I did," James responded without missing a beat.

Carlos tried his best to stifle a giggle, but ended up making a cough-snorting noise. He received weird looks from the other two guys.

"So are you absolutely _positive_ that this is the right question?" Carlos asked Kendall. "I'm putting a lot on the line here."

"Yup," Kendall responded enthusiastically, holding up a heavy chemistry textbook with "Teacher Edition" emblazoned on the cover. "I double-checked with Miss Collins, and it's the same exact problem."

Carlos started to bounce up and down with excitement, creating an undulating wave in the three-person huddle. "I can't wait to see the look on his face!"

"Let's do this!"

James broke away from the huddle first, entering the living room with a slew of dramatic shouts and wild arm gestures. "I can't believe him!" the brown-haired boy yelled with indignation. "Doesn't he know that 'Cuda might need me as an elbow model at any time?"

Logan looked up from the piles of paper surrounding him and searched for the source of the distressed shouts. He found James quickly making his way to the kitchen sink.

"What happened?" Logan asked, voice rising in concern.

As a reply, James held up his right arm as if he were posing. It would have been a scene straight from a magazine ad if it weren't for the streaks of blue ink that ran across his elbow.

"Carlos drew all over my arm with his pen!" James sounded truly distraught when uttering these words.

"Oh." Logan let out a sigh of relief, shook his head, and turned back to schoolwork strewn across the counter.

The brown-haired boy continued with his act. "Don't you 'oh' me. Do you know how long it's going to take to wash this off?"

Back in the hallway, Kendall whispered quietly to Carlos, "That's your cue! Is your headset in?"

The Latino boy nodded. "Yeah, but it's tickling my ear."

"Come on, Carlos. We need you to focus."

"Right." The Latino put on his hockey helmet and gave it two reassuring raps.

"Perfect," Kendall said. "You can barely see it under the helmet. He'll never suspect a thing."

"Check if the mike works."

"Okay," Kendall replied. Flicking the switch from "off" to "on," Kendall whispered into the microphone, "Four-Leaf Clover to Rabbit's Foot, do you copy?"

"Roger that. Let's continue with Operation Winter Blitz."

Meanwhile, James was at the kitchen sink washing his elbow with copious amounts of soap and hot water, while Logan had already refocused his attention on the impossible chemistry problem in front of him. With the water still running, James set the video camera down so that it pointed at Logan, and then pressed the 'Record' button." Logan didn't even notice, but then again, he was never the suspicious type when it came to his friends. _Too bad for him_, James thought deviously.

A few seconds later, Carlos walked into the room as nonchalantly as he could, which ended up looking far too forced. But Logan didn't seem to notice. James turned towards the sink again and continued scrubbing away at the blue ink.

"Hey guys. Ow!" Carlos winced as a sharp screech of microphone feedback pierced his left ear. "The mik—I mean water, is really _loud_. Yeah, that's what I meant." He heard a "_Sorry!_" from the headset.

Logan gave him a strange look, before slowly replying, "Well, I don't mind the water too much. The sound actually helps me concentrate."

Carlos felt the excitement bubbling up inside of him again, so much that he had to press his lips together tightly to stop himself from spoiling the entire plan. The Latino took a few deep breaths before speaking up again.

"What are you working on that requires so much concentration?"

Logan rubbed the back of his neck as his cheeks turned a light shade of pink. "It's just this one chem problem. I've been looking at it and thinking it over for _days_, but I don't even know where to start. Everything I try just leads to a dead end."

Carlos made his way over to the counter and sat down next to Logan. "Can I try and help?" he asked in his most innocent voice, putting up his puppy dog eyes at the same time.

"Carlos, no offence, but you barely passed regular chemistry last year. I don't think you'll be able to help."

"Please, Logie? Please, please, please, please, _please_?"

"Carlos…"

"I bet a month of chores that I'll be able to help you!"

The pale boy sighed in exasperation. "Fine! Here's the problem."

Carlos began reading from the paper. "'If a 1.34 molar—' Wait, 'molar' like a tooth? Why would you have 1.34 teeth?"

Logan gave another sigh. "No. 'Molar' is a unit of concentration. A one molar solution has one mole of solute dissolv—"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. 'If a 1.34 molar solution of natoo co-three mixed with .8 molar bano-thirtytwo—'"

"Give me that." Logan deftly snatched the paper out of Carlos's hands. "It's not 'natoo co-three.' It's called sodium carbonate. And the other reactant is barium nitrate. Please, Carlos. If you're not going to help, then I really need to concentrate."

The Latino closed his eyes for a few moments, as if going into a trance. Logan did not notice, or maybe purposely ignored him, and was busy muttering thoughts to himself. When Carlos re-opened his eyes, he climbed onto the counter, spread his arms wide open as if embracing the world, and proclaimed in a booming voice, "I have the answer!"

"Carlos…" Logan's tone of voice meant that his patience was wearing dangerously thin.

In his best fortune-teller voice, Carlos began to speak. "This problem appears difficult because you are initially tempted to look for limiting and excess reactants in the solutions. However, there is no need to go through this process. Wasn't that what you were trying to do, Logan?"

A command came from his ear. "Hey, stick to the script."

"The key to solving the problem is realizing which simple or polyatomic ions are spectator ions, or ions that are not involved in the reaction. Following this path of thought, it is easy to identify those ions that will react to form a precipitate. The barium cations and carbonate anions will combine and form a solid, while the sodium cations and the nitrate anions will remain in solution. However, the problem is more complex than this. The barium carbonate solid will actually exist in equilibrium with its constituent ions in the ionic solution. A table can be set up and filled in with the initial concentrations of the ionic solutions, adjusting for the dilution that occurs. We may set a variable _x_ to be the amount of ions that precipitate, and from this we obtain the equilibrium equation. As the equilibrium constant is given, we can solve for the value of x and calculate how much of the initial ionic solutions react."

Logan gave Carlos a blank stare. Carlos paused, took a deep breath, and cleared his throat before continuing.

"As for the second part of the problem, the precipitate formed in the first part is removed. We must calculate the new volume by taking into account the volume of the solid removed. The density of the solid is given, and we may calculate the mass of the solid by using our chemical equation to find out how many moles of product are formed, and then by multiplying this value by the solid's molar mass. Having now accounted for the new volume of the two combined solutions, we must consider individually the barium ions and carbonate ions as they react with water surrounding them. This is another exercise in understanding chemical equilibria. These ions would each form acidic and basic solutions, but not necessarily in equal amounts. The acid and base equilibrium constants can be easily researched and used in this problem. From these equilibrium constants, the acid and base ionizations for the non-spectator ions can be calculated in the previous manner, and we calculate the pH to be 5.323. Remember that only digits after the decimal point in a pH value are significant, as the scale is logarithmically defined."

For a moment, Logan looked like a goldfish, opening and closing his mouth repeatedly without saying anything. The next sound to come out of his mouth was a garbled combination of words that ended up sounding like "uwuhwuhwuh."

Kendall took that moment to walk into the living room, chemistry textbook and microphone hidden hurriedly behind his back, and suggested that they head down to the pool. James shut off the water and stopped the recording on the video, slipping the camera back into his pocket. Carlos appeared to be frozen with a smile on his face, trying his best to keep from laughing out loud.

"See you down by the pool, okay?"

Logan was still incomprehensible by the time the other three started walking out of the apartment. Carlos turned around quickly, flashed a grin, and said, "Now you owe me a month of chores."


End file.
